


second time around

by rookerrogue



Category: The Transformers (IDW Generation One), Transformers - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe, Awkward Flirting, Drinking, Fluff, M/M, Post-Transformers: Lost Light 25
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-01
Updated: 2020-01-01
Packaged: 2021-02-27 10:22:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,310
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22075414
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rookerrogue/pseuds/rookerrogue
Summary: In the good universe, the Lost Light comes across another version of a very familiar doctor.How's Ratchet handling that one?
Relationships: Pharma/Ratchet
Comments: 7
Kudos: 54





	second time around

**Author's Note:**

> Secret Solenoid gift for Challengergirl9399 on Tumblr!

“Free drinks for this stupid human holiday was  _ such  _ a bad idea,” Swerve lamented. He smacked Tailgate’s head, attempting to wake the minibot from his slumber on the bar counter. “Hey, Tailgate. Did you hear me? I said this was a stupid idea.”

“Your shipmates seem to like it,” Rewind observed. He had been nursing the same drink all night. He didn’t handle drinking well, and today was definitely dangerous-- if he got drunk, Domey wouldn’t leave him alone about it. “I give it thirty minutes before someone starts dancing on a table.”

“They better the frag not,” Swerve muttered. “Scraped my counter up last time.”

“Mean version of Ratchet likes it,” Tailgate said, muffled, unable to pick his head up from the bar counter.

“Who, Pharma?” Swerve looked over at the jet. “Not-Pharma, I mean. Different Pharma. Alternate-Universe Pharma. Somehow less crazy version of Pharma.”

“Yeah, him,” Tailgate affirmed, “. . . I guess?”

Rewind shook his head. “You’re right. He’s drinking more than Trailbreaker.”

_ “Which would be fine,”  _ Swerve reminded him, “IF he were  _ paying  _ for them--”

“Look, he’s been on the ship for a month,” Rewind said reasonably. “Now that he knows about your bar, he’ll probably come more often.”

Swerve settled down in his seat, propping his chin on his hands grumpily. “He better. I’m losing money by the glass here, and that bastard is pouring them down like it-- what’s the human phrase? Grows on trees, or something.”

“Ten o clock,” Rewind said suddenly. 

“Where?” Swerve said, looking entirely the wrong way.

_ “Ten o clock,  _ Swerve. That’s  _ that  _ way. Look, it’s Ratchet.”

“Oh, man,” Swerve said, grinning. “This is going to be some shit, huh?”

Rewind shrugged. “As far as I know, this is the first time they’ve really interacted outside of the medibay. Pharma’s been so busy helping with the spark-weakening disease thing--”

“Yeah, I mean. . .” Swerve blew out a worried vent, polishing a glass nervously. “You think Ratchet’s gonna be okay?”

“He’s tough,” Rewind said confidently, hiding how unsure he really was about what Ratchet would do. Sure, Ratchet was  _ tough,  _ but. . . this was  _ Pharma.  _ AKA, Pharma who killed Ambulon. Who almost killed Drift. Ratchet may have put aside whatever hesitations he may have had to work with the doctor, but now. . . 

Well. Just because this was a version of Pharma that hadn’t done any of that might not put him in Ratchet’s good graces.

“If the doc starts fighting, I want you to wake me up so I can watch,” Tailgate said sleepily.

“Fancy meeting you here,” Pharma said, winking at Ratchet as he approached the tap. “Don’t you have all those reports you were so desperate to do?”

“I finished them,” Ratchet said. Finished them and finished cleaning the medibay and finished every slip of paperwork that Ultra Magnus could possibly throw at him, and now he was stuck with no recourse except to go to the bar and get drunk as all hell to purge the memory of the first real shipwide disease he’d had to deal with since they jumped universes.

And, of course, to avoid dealing with the reality of the fact that they’d taken Pharma with a capital P onto the Lost Light. 

It seemed that realization was determined to stare him in the face anyway.

“That doesn’t sound like you at all,” Pharma said disapprovingly. “I mean,  _ my  _ Ratchet-- apparently not you, but  _ my  _ Ratchet-- he’d procrastinate on everything, and I mean  _ everything.” _

Ratchet, despite himself, chuckled. “During the Academy?”

“Yes!” Pharma grinned widely. “You would throw your assignments behind the couch and start messing around with the booze--”

“If you mention that to Drift, I  _ will  _ kill you,” Ratchet warned.

“ _ I can do the work in an hour, but I’m here to have fun first,  _ is a familiar Ratchet saying,” Pharma mused. “Apparently, not you anymore.”

Ratchet took a sip. “Nope.”

“Well, who am I to judge. I only knew you in the Academy.”

Ratchet turned, his interest piqued. “What happened to. . . me? Ratchet in this universe?”

“Your captain mentioned something about wanting to find out everything in this universe on his own, ‘so don’t even think about spoiling anything for us,’ if I remember right,” Pharma said primly. 

_ Bitch,  _ Ratchet noted, a bit relieved that at least one thing hadn’t changed. “Go on, tell me,” he said, leaning against the counter. “I’ll keep quiet.”

Pharma relaxed against the counter. “Really, there’s nothing that much to tell. Ratchet was my roommate at the Academy, and we dated for a few years-- I assume it’s the same in your universe?”

Ratchet coughed into his drink. “Yeah.”

Pharma winked at him. “I assume you never got over your version of me, either.”

“Oh, no, I definitely did,” Ratchet said, laughing in spite of himself.

“That’s what they all say,” Pharma said, his wings flitting upwards slightly. “But yes, after the Academy, Ratchet went off to work somewhere in the colonies, and as far as I know he’s still there.”

“What about the war?”

Pharma looked sideways at him. “The war?”

Ratchet made impatient motions with his hands. “Yes, the  _ war.  _ What happened to me then? Was I still-- what, did I just stay in the colonies?”

“The. . .  _ war,”  _ Pharma repeated. “And what war was that?”

Ratchet stared at him in silence for a few moments, and set his drink down slowly. “You’re really going to look at my face and tell me you don’t know about the Cybertronian war?”

There was another pause, during which Ratchet’s processor began to slowly overload itself with possibilities. No war meant no Megatron, unless Functionism had been taken care of some other way-- but what about the M.T.O’s? Brainstorm and Riptide and even Ambulon, so he could scratch off the hope of finding a universe where the medic was still alive. But no war-- what was Cybertron like? What was the  _ universe  _ like? 

“No,” Pharma said, “I’m joking. Yeah, during the war you must have done some kind of war effort. Maybe you died during the fighting, because I haven’t seen you since.” He winked. “Well, up until about a month ago.”

Ratchet was doing a poor job of masking his disappointment. He felt cheated out of a universe he’d begun to hope for. “You haven’t changed,” he said bitterly.

Pharma leaned back on the counter and slowly looked him up and down. “Neither have you.”

There was a very long pause.

“Am I still a better doctor than you?” Pharma asked slyly.

Ratchet barked out a laugh. That one hit too close to home.  _ “No.” _

“Harsh, Ratchet. Come on. Didn’t I save that one pretty mech when you were busy with everyone else? What was his name again?”

“. . . Drift,” Ratchet acknowledged, grudgingly. “Yeah. Thank you.”

“I know you must not trust me,” Pharma said suddenly, and his drink spilled to the ground, “but I want to prove to you and everyone here that I’m not the version of you-- of me, that I’m, you’re thinking I am.”

“Okay,” Ratchet said, carefully setting his own down on the bar counter. “Why don’t you ease off on the--”

“Because I’m  _ not, _ ” Pharma said stubbornly. “Okay, I’m-- you’re-- it’s all different, and you’re  _ so _ different, okay? I’m different.”

Ratchet was quiet for a moment. “All right,” he said. “I’ll try to remember that.”

Not that it wouldn’t be hard. Not that he wasn’t still feeling Ambulon’s loss and the sharpness of original-Pharma’s grin as he split him in half. Not that he wasn’t filled with conflicting feelings every time he looked at the face of his old friend and older enemy. 

“Plus, you’re still really hot,” Pharma added.

Not that he didn’t want to  _ murder  _ Pharma every time he said shit like this.

“I’ll try,” he repeated.

“Drink?” Pharma asked, offering his glass to Ratchet.

“No.” Ratchet hid a smile. “No, you’ve had enough.”

  
  
  
  
  
  
  



End file.
